Born: August 28, 1965
City and Country of Origin: Windsor, Ontario
Music Training:
Awards:
Top Recordings: "Any Man of Mine," "(If You're Not in It for Love) I'm Outta Here!," "Come on Over"
Comments: "Shania" is Ojibway for "I'm On My Way." She was born in Windsor, Ontario to Irish and French-Canadian parents. She is not of Native Canadian descent. Her parents were divorced a few years after she was born and her mother took the family up north into the interior to the logging city of Timmins, Ontario. It was there that her mother met and married an Ojibway, Jerry Twain. He adopted Eileen and her two sisters Jill, the oldest and Carrie, the youngest. Together her parents would have two sons Mark, then Darryl. The family lived in relative poverty often joining the local native reservation to hunt for food. Young Eileen often went to school with just a slice of bread spread with mustard and nothing more. In spite of the poverty her mother still worked at nurturing her daughters musical talents by putting her up on the counter top to sing. By the time she was 8 she was singing in old people's homes and bars. She even landed some TV appearances. By the age of 10 she was writing her own songs. While in her teens she worked at the local McDonalds after school and at her father's reforestation business. At 16 she she played in her first band Longshot. When she was 21 she moved to Toronto to work as a secretary by day and a singer by night. At age 22 she received the horrifying news that both of her parents had been killed in an automobile accident. This single incident shaped her entire life. Fist she went back to Timmins to be with her brothers and sister and to help raise them. She moved the family to Huntsville, Ontario where she earned a living performing at the Deerhurst Resort. It was hard work performing night after night, but it was also a very good experience from which she learned a lot about singing and the music business. A family friend arranged to have some Nashville music people see her perform at Deerhurst. They invited her to Nashville to cut a demo. Soon after she was offered a recording contrat with Mercury Nashville. Her first album did not garner much attention, but it did capture the eye of a South African record producer, Mutt Lange who was living in England who watched the latest video releases on CMT Europe. He was persistent enough to finally be able to get in touch with the young singer. After talking on the phone for a time, they finally met. They started writing songs together and wound up getting married. Their collaborative effort produced 2 enormously successful albums The Woman In Me and Come On Over.

Music by the Decade:

Sounds of the Fifties

Sounds of the Sixties

Sounds of the Seventies

Sounds of the Eighties

Sounds of the Nineties